TV: what have you been watching?

Both Andor and The Last Of Us are having excellent seasons.

Andor is showing us what it might be like to have to violently overthrow a fascist regime. I'm taking notes.

I enjoyed The Pitt. The head nurse looks like my ex-girlfriend but is nicer.

I will tell you about one night I spent in an emergency room. My wife was sick, and I needed to drive her to Boston. She was a diabetic, so the local hospitals really didn't have the doctors who dealt with diabetics well. So most of the time I needed to drive to Boston, about an hour from where we lived. If she needed to be admitted, her doctors were right there.

We arrive at Brigham and Women's on a snowy, cold winter evening. We get to the emergency room which is packed. Since the hospital is in downtown Boston, you can expect all sorts of people there.

We find a place to sit and Mary sees a nurse who puts her name on the waiting list. I look around and notice that things are much more crazy than usual. There's a few local police and State police inside. I go outside for a cigarette, and there are probably thirty police outside. I was questioned before I could get back into the emergency room.

By now, maybe an hour after we arrived, the place is packed. Maybe not the level of packed as in The Pitt, but close.

Why all the police presence? Seems that night Boston's assistant district attorney had been shot, so everyone entering the emergency room was screened carefully. Also, many Boston officials were arriving to check on the attorney.

I look around the room and note the usual: a couple people bleeding, a few sort of moaning, a couple walking around. But sitting along a wall is an entire Indian family, probably right or nine people, the men in suits, the women in saris. They are not speaking at all, just waiting patiently.

In come two Black guys off the street. They have that dirty homeless look. One, the small guy, does not have shoes on. The other, a big guy, seems to be the one who brought the other guy in. Both seem drunk or high.

At this point we had been waiting nearly two hours. The big Black guy goes into action when Monday Night Football begins. He goes around the room asking everyone if they want to bet on the game, and he's not being polite about it. The members of the Indian family just look confused. Others seem threatened. He doesn't come up to me because I'm already giving him that look that says don't mess with me.

The game starts. The small guy jumps up, kinda limp-wristed, and yells, "Oooh, I just loves the men in their tight pants."

He goes to sit down and the big guy pulls his chair out from under him. Small hits the floor (they are sharing a chair, each sitting for awhile why the other stand because it's the only empty one left in the room). The big guy goes to sit, and the small guy pulls the chair out from under him. Big guy hits the floor. This goes on a couple more times until police finally notice and put an end to it.

At this point we had been waiting almost three hours, so I ask the nurse if she can give me an approximate time when she will be seen. She's not on the list. I explain that another nurse had taken the names and must have screwed up. The nurse believed me and took Mary in at the next opening.

About an hour later, a nurse walks up to me (the waiting room is still filled) and tells me I can see her now. I see Mary and tell her the nurse just walked right up to me without asking my name. How did she know it was me. Mary said she just told the nurse to look for a guy who looked like an English professor.

Over the years I have been in countless emergency rooms, and except for the last couple of episodes of The Pitt, the show isn't far from what I have seen. One other time: Mary walks into the kitchen when I'm getting ready for work one morning and collapses on the kitchen floor. It starts snowing, but I still drive her to Boston. Even though she's talking erratically, we still wait about three hours in the emergency room. Finally, she's taken in and a doctor comes to see her. I explain what happened, and the doctor tells me to grab the end of the gurney. We push her to the elevator to take her to the operating room.

You kinda know it's an emergency when a doctor doesn't wait for transport. He comes to see me later and says he was concerned she might have needed surgery for a brain aneurysm. Fortunately, the bleeding had stopped.

Yeah, The Pitt is realistic.

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"I'm going to be a father."

I do enjoy Andor but The Last of Us has some intriguing elements and some I don't get.

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Thanks for sharing your story, John. A friend of mine is a nurse and she worked in the ER during covid. She said she could only watch the first episode of The Pitt because it was far too realistic and when she's consuming art she wants an escape from reality, not a brutal reminder of her day to day. I love The Pitt. Had no idea what to expect going in, was blown away by how invested I felt with every episode.

Andor exceeded my lofty expectations of season 2. Tony Gilroy and his team performed some magic to tie everything together in a snappy timeframe. I love the 3 episode story arc, makes me wonder how many showrunners will attempt the same in the future. I'm also so happy that the show manages to be such a middle finger to Nazis/MAGA morons and that the show exists on such a massive streaming platform. No spoilers, but Season 2, episode 10 features the origin story of a couple of characters in the show. It was so unexpected since it was so late in the game for the season, but it all made sense and it may be by favorite episode of the series. I watched Rogue One after I watched episode 9 and I'm so glad that I did. I appreciate the way they tell the story, with absolutely no hand holding. Such a rewarding series to watch.

Cro,

Haven't watched those last three episodes of Andor. Need the time to watch all three in a row.

My brother and my two nieces are nurses and Covid really wore out my brother, but I think it wore out most of us.

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Excellent post and an excellent series....I love how Gilroy makes the final episode less about Cassian and more about the side characters - Kleya, Jung, etc. - and how important they are to the rebellion. Wihtout them, the Death Star does not get destroyed. Rebellions are about everyone who is later forgotten and what they did to inch that rebellion forward ever so slightly.

The scene when Andor and Vel toast those who they've lost and then when Partagaz is replaying that wonderful speech about freedom by season 1 character Nevik -- that's what the show is about.

And we know Andor is going to get important info from a man he will have to kill to protect that information at the beginning of Rogue One...just shows the enormous sacrifices resistance to fascism demands.

Great, great show.

He has become Luthen after all

My fav character in Andor is Saw Gerera s2 e5 portrayed by Forest Whitaker . He really shines in that episode. Maybe its the rhydonium fumes. "I have friends everywhere" is my new mantra.

Forgot which episode it was from, maybe 11? I said to my brother, "He's thinking and talking like Luthen. Think he finally took Luthen's advice, "You need to think like a leader."

A buddy of mine would sometimes quote the code phrase from Tenet, "We live in a twilight world." "And there are no friends at dusk." For us that usually meant one of us was rewatching Tenet. "I have friends everywhere" will be added to this! heh

Bad Thoughts on Netflix by Tom Segura. Only 6 short episodes but this is AMAZING! Hard to describe? I guess you would say it's a collection of vignettes that are deeply twisted, dark, disgusting and oh yeah absolutely hilarious!

Last shot in last episode of Andor was pure Terrence Malick.

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Really enjoying this series of Taskmaster so far. I think Stevie Martin is my favorite. She's such a goofy dork.

The Americas, a big nature series narrated by Tom Hanks. I've really enjoyed it, though it is pretty Disney-fied. At least in the ones I've seen, cute animals never die. Only fish and bugs. It's corny and not very challenging. I imagine this is to make it accessible to children, which is important, so I'm willing to overlook it, though I think children can take a bit of tragedy and don't need to be condescended to quite so much.

However, I kept imagining that I was watching the film with Werner Herzog and every five minutes he would throw something at the screen and errupt into a rant about the endless savagery and infinite cruelty of nature.

Anyway, the footage they have is fantastic and worth watching with any narration.

The Last Of Us. Just give Joe Pantoliano the guest Emmy right now. Holy ****. That was brutal.

Agree.

Much better episode last night.

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Last night's episode was superb. Joey Pants' face and voice when he realized what was about to happen was a straight gut punch. I just don't get why Joel had to lie to Ellie tho. Not to be THAT guy but it feels like Mazin is playing too much "What if" when it comes to changing story beats. I do appreciate the added insight of Joel finally confessing to Ellie what happened. Pascal and Ramsey are terrific together, they feel so lived in and the trust-building and trust-breaking events are heartbreaking.

Finished up The Pitt last night. It was good and Wylie was great as was the entire cast but I probably didn't like it as much as its accolades. Yeah it was realistic and intense. I can't remember watching anything where I had to turn away from the screen so often due to the albiet realistic gore and blood and guts. And yeah there was plenty of diveresity except for one area. All the villians and *******s were white guys. No diversity there 😀 The nurse puncher, the ambulance thieves, the drug stealing doctor, the daughter molester, the lying drug addict etc. Only other villian I remember was the white lady pimp.

Rewatching Archer again from the beginning. So freakin' funny.
"She was like the Pele of anal."

Also, first episode of Duster was fun.

Love Clarksons Farm! Is the whole season 4in or is it split up? I have been hesitant to click because I think last time they split it up and I like it all there for a binge.

Split. First four now with two each the next couple weeks.

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♥ Harriet

Just found out The Drew Carey Show has it's own YouTube channel and has been releasing full episodes (currently at the first 12), so I've started a rewatch since I haven't watched since it was first on TV.

Only on ep2. First ep was kind of rough. The second is a little better so far.

season finale of Mobland:

That was amazing. The scene between Kevin and Conrad in prison was spectacular. Best performances of both Brosnan and Considine's careers. They've always been great, but holy ****. And...

Was wondering how they were going to realistically keep Jan with Harry...

Very entertaining season.